Each issue publishes original quantitative and qualitative researches, review articles, descriptions of educational practices and evaluated experiences, papers which develop theories, debates, critical analysis of specific policies and practices, book analysis (long articles: 7000 words; short articles: 3000 words). Images and videos may be accepted for the electronic format of the journal.

2. The submission stage

Authors have now to submit their manuscripts and all associated files via the web to the editorial office, and track the progress of their manuscript throughout the peer review process via the Manuscript Management System (MMS) available at https://articlestatus.edpsciences.org/is/tpe/. Manuscripts should be sent in Word or RTF format. Please follow the instructions displayed on the screen after accessing the website.

All articles are peer reviewed by at least two independent referees. Once accepted, the articles cannot be withdrawn or published elsewhere

3. The acceptance stage

Once accepted by the Editorial Board, the manuscript will be sent to the production. EDP Sciences should receive for each figure the "native" electronic files (one file per figure), using one of the following formats: eps (preferably), tiff, bmp or jpeg. Files should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi; colour figures should be registered in CMYK.

4. Style guide

In order to make the correspondence between authors and the production department easier, the author should provide with his/her manuscript: name and address, phone number, e-mail, fax number (fax and phone numbers will not be published). The contribution of each author to the article should be precised.

Title

In French and in English, it should be brief and informative. It must be followed by the authors' names and full addresses. The address should appear as: Laboratory/Institute, University, City, Country. For hospitals or other health institutions: Department, Hospital/Institution, City, Country.

Abstracts

In French and in English (about 200 words each), each one in a single paragraph, they present the content and the original data supplied, the main conclusions and any interesting results, structured according the following format: Introduction, Objectives, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion (articles reporting original quantitative and qualitative researches, review articles) or Introduction, Objectives, Contributions/description, Conclusion (descriptions of educational practices and evaluated experiences, papers which develop theories, debates, critical analysis of specific policies and practices).

Keywords (in French and English)

The author should provide a maximum of five keywords. Keywords should be written in bold lowercase letters, separated by slashes: the plural form and uppercase letters should be avoided. Abbreviations. A list of abbreviations should be provided at the beginning of the article.

Text

The main body of the text must be precise and concise. It should be typed with double spacing; footnotes should be kept to a minimum and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Information not essential to the understanding of the text is in Appendix at the end of the article or only published on line.

Units and symbols

The international system of units (SI) should be used. Latin locution will be written in italic.

Illustrations

Tables are numbered using Roman numerals (Tab. I), Figures Arabic numerals (Fig. 1). The author must call every Table and Figure in the text. In the paper version of the journal, figures will be printed in black and white (at no cost) or in color (prices available upon request). In the electronic version, the original colours of the figures will be reproduced at no extra cost. In case scanning is necessary, please provide good-quality originals for your figures. Authors should keep in mind that the final reproduction of their figures essentially depends on the originals. For best results, figures should be provided respecting the guidelines detailed below:

Final height of capital letters should be between 1.6 and 2.3 mm (10 to 12 point).

Avoid use of bold lettering.

Letter size should be homogeneous in size in all figures of the article.

Where possible, avoid using grey levels. Hatching is preferable.

For curves, standard symbols must be used .

Tables should be kept in their simplest form, lines and columns being unambiguously identifiable.

Important. Any reproduction of previously published figure or table must be accompanied by written permission from the copyright holder.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should appear at the end of the main text. Any funding should be mentioned.

References

It is important to confirm the accuracy of bibliographic information in references. This has become more important with the online version. Hyperlinks will be programmed to enable readers to jump directly to the material cited. If your reference citations are incorrect or incomplete e.g., missing author name, or an incorrect volume number or page), the associated hyperlinks may fail, and the usefulness of your paper in the online environment may be diminished. All the references must be cited in the text by placing sequential numbers in brackets (for example, [1], [2,5,7], [8-10]). They should be numbered in the order in which they are cited. Authors may be cited in the text by name, but without initials. Authors should use layout and punctuation below in the final reference list. Examples:

Note: when the reference has more than 6 authors, the journal cites 6 authors et al.

5. Proofs stage

Proofs will be sent to the first or nominated author by e-mail in PDF format and must be returned within 48 hours of receipt. Any major changes will be charged to the authors.

Offprints

The PDF file of the article is provided free of charge at the final stage. The file is send to the author for correspondence. Printed copies may be purchased from the publisher at the proofreading stage.

6. Conflicts of interest, ethics and copyright

Conflict of interest

The authors must state any conflict of interest. See international form at: http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/.

There are a number of types of academic misconduct, for which we draw special attention to the following: plagiarism, data falsification... That’s the reason why Education Thérapeutique du Patient – Therapeutic Patient Education subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (www.publicationethics.org).

Statement of Informed Consent

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published.
Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Copyright

Proofs must be accompanied by a letter signed by one of the authors on behalf of all the co-authors according agreement to transfer the copyright.